Railroads were one of the first major forms of transportation in the early development of the United States. The completion of an intercontinental railroad spurred the development of the western portion of the United States as the mode of transportation provided an economical and timely means of transporting goods and people across the country.
Today, the modern railroad system is an important part of economy. While the passenger travel is limited to commuter trains and relatively short distances, the railroad is responsible for the delivery of more commercial cargo than any other type of transportation. Rail is the most cost effective manner in delivering large amounts of goods. Our railway system in the United States consists of over 200,00 miles of tracks. As part of these tracks, there are switches that are operable to route trains in a desired direction.
Railroad switches are designed to guide the wheels of the train in one of two directions. The moving pieces of the switch are commonly referred to as points and the crossing creates a gap in the rail for a wheel flange to pass through so as to direct the train in the desired direction. The points are connected with at least one stretcher bar to ensure that one of the points is against the stock rail and the other point is clear to provide room for the wheel flange. The movement and control of the switches can be accomplished utilizing several devices such as but not limited to an electric/hydraulic control unit that moves the switch intermediate its first and second position.
When traversing through switches, the movements of the train traversing therethrough is categorized as either a facing movement or a trailing movement. A train coming from either of the converging directs will pass through the points onto the narrow end, regardless of the position of the points and the wheels will force the points to move. Passage through a switch in this direction is known as a trailing point movement. Trailing movements through switches lined against them, known as running through a switch, continues to be a problem in our modern railroad system. When this occurs the switch is damaged and requires repair and unless repaired can cause safety hazards such as but not limited to train derailment. Additionally, the running through of switches costs the railroad industry millions of dollars per year in repair costs and damages. While currently there are visual signals that alert operators as to the position of the switch, the current technology has proven ineffective in preventive thousand of instances of running through switches each year.
Accordingly, there is a need for a railroad switch position indication system and method that would provide notification to an approaching train that the switched is lined against the approaching train and further provide operational override if the locomotive engineer provide corrective action.